The Quintessential Father

May 22, 2007

I know that Father's Day is still a month or so away, but I just want to say that one of the things that makes my husband so awesome is that he loves to read to the kids. Tonight he finished reading The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh to Duncan. This is somewhat of a sacred moment in our home (kind of like finishing The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings), and I love that Randy came out of Duncan's room, said (with his hand over his heart) "I got all choked up," and blogged about it. Of course, his post made me get all teary-eyed, especially since this may be the last complete reading of Pooh Bear until we have grandkids.

Years ago Randy's brother, Greg, wrote a beautiful children's short story. The cadence was especially beautiful. Greg's comment was, "I wrote it with Randy's voice in mind." He said that he has heard Randy read to the kids so much over the years that it was only natural that he would have Randy's voice in his head when he was writing a children's story.

Reading aloud to our children is the simplest gift we could ever give. My parents were readers, and I treasure the memories of evenings spent reading aloud the Pearl Buck story Bible or selections from The Best Loved Poems. It is not unusual even now for my mother to say "Listen to this!" as she reads a paragraph from her latest novel or for my father to search for a favorite old poem and read to us at the dinner table. For our children to carry the sounds of our voices into their lives is just one way to wrap them in our love.